Visible All-sky
Overview
The Milky Way as seen by our eyes—in visible light. Looking toward the constellations Scorpius and Sagittarius, the Milky Way is very prominent. This is because we’re looking toward the center of the Galaxy, so there is more gas and dust in that direction.
In ancient times, our ancestors observed the stars, the wandering stars (a.k.a. planets), and the Milky Way. Aside from the occasional comet, guest star (a.k.a. supernova), or aurora, these were the only cosmic attractions visible to them.
The Milky Way was the subject of many myths and legends. The Greeks believed it to be a river of milk pouring from the breast of Hera, the wife of Zeus, and called it a “galaxy,” from the Greek word for milk. The Romans called it the Via Lactea, or the Milky Way. The Māori interpreted it as a canoe with the ends of the canoe being Scorpius and Orion. It was not until 1610 that Galileo first observed this faint band of light with his telescope, discovering that it was composed of innumerable faint stars.
Over the past 400 years, astronomers and philosophers have speculated about the nature of this band of light, but it was not until the 20th century that astronomers began to understand the nature of our Galaxy—that our 2-D view of this band of light represents a large, 3-D object with a structure of its own.
Image Characteristics
The brightest part of the Milky Way is toward the constellations Scorpius and Sagittarius. This is because you are looking directly toward the center of the Galaxy. Now that we understand the 3-D nature of the Galaxy, and that we’re roughly two-thirds of the way out from its center, we know we look through more stars and gas in this direction.
Conversely, when we look toward Orion, we are looking away from the Galactic center, and through a thinner zone of stars and gas and out into the universe.
Along the band of light in this image you will see dark areas that appear to obscure the light from behind. These are called dark nebulae and are locations of dense molecular clouds that harbor dust which obscures visible light. Dust, for a scientist, is microscopic grains of rock, from a few molecules to a tenth of a millimeter, and they are a huge nuisance for astronomers.
The Milky Way toward Orion is very faint and diffuse because we are seeing through less material as we look out of the Galaxy and away from the Galaxy’s center.
About the Image
This all-sky image was assembled from 3,000 individual frames over two years by Axel Mellinger. He captured these from Michigan, Texas, and South Africa. The stars we see in the sky were essentially subtracted out, leaving just the gas, dust, and diffuse starlight.
Profiles
Dossier
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1 all-sky image |
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OpenSpace Version: |
2 |
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Prepared by: |
Brian Abbott, Carter Emmart (AMNH), OpenSpace Team |
Source Version: |
1.04 |
License: |